Students in a classroom of the Apas National High School in Cebu City. (File photo by DALE ISRAEL / Inquirer Visayas)
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) on Wednesday said it currently had no plans to revert the school calendar following a senator’s push to move back the April-May summer break of students.
“As mentioned in a previous statement, school heads have the discretion to suspend in-person classes and immediately switch to [alternative delivery mode] or blended learning if the environment is not conducive to learning,” DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa said in a Viber message to reporters.
He added that they would “take note of the suggestions and study the matter.”
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee on basic education, on Tuesday said the April-May summer vacation must be brought back following the incident in Cabuyao City, where students collapsed after experiencing heat exhaustion during an unannounced fire drill.
“It will take a little bit of time because that would require a slow transition. But we are already used to that,” he said.
Prior to the pandemic, the school calendar in basic education began in June and ended in March.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers union in the National Capital Region expressed concern over the recent survey, which found that 86.7 percent of public school teachers reported that students could not focus on their lessons because of intolerable heat in classrooms.
In an online survey among 11,706 public school teachers, 10,140 teachers, or 86.7 percent of the respondents said the learners found it difficult to concentrate because of the heat.